Nuts, crab claws, lobster claws and the like must have their shells broken to access their meat. The shells are often difficult to break and a tool is usually required for assistance.
Conventional shell cracking tools (such as the common nutcracker) have a pair of levers that are pivotally connected to a common axis. A shell is placed between the levers and the levers are manually squeezed together (usually with one hand) to crack the shell.
Typically, these tools require the user to apply considerable force to crack the shell. This is because the levers provide the user with only a small mechanical advantage. The tools are intended to be held in one hand and may not be comfortably braced against a surface to assist the user in applying force to the levers. Some shells, such as stone crab shells, are especially hard to crack and cannot usually be broken with conventional crackers. Often a mallet is required to break these shells.
In the course of applying a great deal of force to the levers to crack a shell, it is difficult to immediately lessen the force once the initial crack occurs. As a result, the shell will often shatter under the excess force after the first crack causing a mess. Furthermore, the meat may become damaged when the shell shatters and may also have shell fragments embedded in it. In either case the meat will be less desirable to eat.
There is a need for a shell cracker that provides improved mechanical assistance for cracking the shell. Such an improved cracker would allow greater control of the force being applied in cracking the shell in order to reduce the occurrences of shattering and damage to the meat. Also, such an improved cracker would allow very hard shelled foods, such as stone crabs, to be cracked with relative ease.